Fetch by ID

Files to be retrieved and opened can be specified by their identifiers in various structure databases. Choosing File... Fetch by ID from the menu opens a dialog for specifying the ID code of the file of interest:

NDB ID - a Nucleic Acid Database identifier, which will be translated into a PDB ID and then used to open the file as described below
PDB ID - a 4-character Protein Data Bank identifier for a file in PDB format. Chimera will attempt to find the file within a local installation of the Protein Data Bank. If the file is not found locally, Chimera will try to retrieve it from the Protein Data Bank web site (by default; this can be turned off in the PDB preferences).
SCOP ID - a 7-character SCOP domain identifier for a file in PDB format. Chimera will try to retrieve the SCOP domain structure from the ASTRAL Compendium.

The default places to look for a local installation of the Protein Data Bank are /usr/mol/pdb/ and then /mol/pdb/. These can be changed by editing the Python file share/chimera/pdbDir within a Chimera installation.

The database home pages can be reached via the links on the right side of the dialog. Clicking Fetch opens the indicated file and dismisses the dialog (although there is a checkbox option to Keep dialog up after Fetch). Close dismisses the dialog without opening the file. The Help button brings up this manual page in a browser window.